Nigeria: NCC to Criminalise Vandalism of Infrastructure

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed plans to make the vandalisation of telecoms infrastructure a criminal offence.

The commission made this known last week in Abuja while acknowledging a formal report of the vandalisation of some base stations in North Eastern Nigeria, saying details of the affected base stations will be forwarded to the commission at a later date following a comprehensive audit.

The commission also stated that since it was a security matter, an official statement has been made to relevant security agencies who are on top of the situation

The Director, Public Affairs, NCC Tony Ojob, also told journalists that the deadline for the sanctions of telecoms providers that have not met its key performance indicators (KPI) is December, 2012 and not September as reported by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

He noted that service providers indicated that it would take some time to build more base stations and getting approval could also be a hindrance.

According to him, "We agreed on progressive improvements on the networks where they will begin to work progressively towards the ultimate KPI. Telecoms operators gave reasons such as the vast location of base stations and issues of approvals for citing of base stations as militating factors."

On the issue of SIM card registration, Ojobo revealed that at the time the House of Representatives set up a committee to look at the issues of SIM card registration, the commission stopped all processes. But he hinted that the skeletal upload of data was going on but not on a large scale since the commission was still waiting for the outcome of the report. He, however, said that as soon as that happens, the commission would take the necessary steps towards completion of the exercise.